


catalyst

by tkramsey (noctiphany)



Category: Fae Tales - not_poignant
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Bittersweet Ending, Dubious Consent, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Magical Bond, Non-Consensual Bondage, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Power Play, Sex Magic, Telepathy, power bottom Mosk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:14:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23061532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noctiphany/pseuds/tkramsey
Summary: The Raven Prince knows he can suffer the consequences of this easily, as he has suffered much, much worse. But what's troublesome is how Mosk will feel about it once he comes out of this emotionally charged fugue of magic and power. He expects it will only help to cement Mosk's silly idea that he is irredeemable and The Raven Prince cannot allow that to happen, because once Mosk accepts that about himself, truly accepts it in his heart -- well. Then they are all doomed.
Relationships: The Raven Prince/Mosk Manytrees
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	catalyst

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Ice Plague: Book 2 - The Seething Seas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874) by [not_poignant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_poignant/pseuds/not_poignant). 



> *** For those who may need more detailed information on the consent issues in this, check the notes at the bottom.
> 
> *** Mosk isn't cheating. I intend to write a follow up to this one-shot and I'll explain it more there, but basically Eran knows he's there and he's okay with it. 
> 
> God bless not_poignant for being such a genius and creating this fandom and for allowing fanworks to be made, because I love their characters more than life! If you haven't read Every Single Thing they've written FIRST GO DO THAT. You will not regret it. In fact, you will regret the years you wasted not doing that. :D

“Mosk,” The Raven Prince says, brows knitting together as the fibers from the ropes rub against his skin. He’s still getting used to this body again, how everything feels, what he likes and doesn’t like, and he’s trying to parse out whether or not the ropes around his wrists are painful, uncomfortable, or simply an inconvenience. “Mosk, I rather think you should untie these ropes.” 

Mosk, with his long, too skinny legs bracketing each side of the Raven Prince, worries at his bottom lip with his teeth and shakes his head. 

“Mosk,” The Raven Prince tries again. “It would be a _very_ good idea to untie me now.” 

Mosk just shakes his head again. The look in his eyes is far off and his skin is hot to the touch where it’s pressed up against the Raven Prince’s, his cheeks flushed. The Raven Prince can feel the magic coming off of him like hot sparks, like Mosk is nothing but one small, boy-shaped live wire. The Raven Prince has already tried to push it back inside of him, to use his own magic to subdue the boy to no avail. It’s curious. Curious and not only a little alarming. 

“If I untie you, you’ll leave,” Mosk says. “I don’t want you to go.” 

“Oh, Mosk,” the Raven Prince says softly. He gets it now, the way Mosk’s magic is just unspooling from inside of him, reaching out and curling around everything like tendrils of dangerous, wondrous power, holding on to whatever it can. But then he feels a slash to his face and though he knows it’s nothing more than Mosk’s uncontrolled magic and not something solid that could actually harm him, the Raven Prince’s cheek stings as if it had. 

“Don’t patronize me,” Mosk grits out, his magic pulsing around him now, red hot and full of resentment. “I’m so tired of people talking to me like I don’t understand anything. I understand _everything._ ”

“Yes,” The Raven Prince says. “Fine. Then you must understand that the way you’re feeling at this particular moment is not the way that you normally feel. Your meridians are completely and utterly wide open right now, Mosk. I don't know how or why you managed it, but trust me when I say this, as I am not prone to histrionics. What you're doing right now is very, very dangerous.”

“Doesn't feel dangerous to me,” Mosk says, dragging his fingertips down the Raven Prince's chest, and the sensation is like nothing the Raven Prince has ever felt before and _that --_ that does not happen often. His toes curl a little as Mosk's magic sinks beneath his skin and lights his meridians up like fireworks, stealing the breath from his lungs momentarily. He can only assume it feels the way it does because it’s Mosk’s magic combining with his own. It’s like trying to push the same poles of two magnets together; impossible under usual circumstance, but if by some chance you manage to connect the two of them ---

_Sparks._

“Mosk,” The Raven Prince tries again, not realizing how breathless he is until he tries to speak. “Stop this.”

“No. I don't want to,” Mosk says childishly and The Raven Prince is once again reminded just how young he is, and how much more dangerous it makes this. “I don't think you want me to either.”

The Raven Prince cannot help but roll his eyes. “Little tree,” he says. “You know nothing of what I want.”

“You want to be touched,” Mosk says, trailing his fingers once again over The Raven Prince's skin, the magic setting him alight with each touch. “You want to know more about me.”

With nothing more than a cursory glance, Mosk uncurls the vines from around one of the Raven Prince's wrists and takes his hand, lining their fingers up together, palm to palm. 

“I want to show you,” Mosk murmurs, then he closes his eyes and The Raven Prince closes his as well, takes a deep breath, and--

If his fingertips had felt like fireworks, what Mosk does next feels like the birth of a new star. The Raven Prince feels as if his body explodes into bits and pieces of stardust, and then in the same moment, is put back together. Or possibly, remade into something new. 

He doesn't realize that he has made any noise until Mosk's hand covers his mouth, his skin hot and sticky sweet against The Raven Prince's lips. But then, the Raven Prince cannot help but be aware of the noises he is making. Wounded noises, but not. Pathetic whimpers. Something that might have been a moan if he hadn't had the sense to swallow it back down. 

“See,” Mosk says, sounding pleased with himself. “Not dangerous.”

 _Oh, you stupid tree,_ the Raven Prince thinks, _how wrong you are._

“I know something else about you,” Mosk says, finally letting go of the Raven Prince's hand, binding it to the bed once again with his vines. He doesn't take his hand from the Raven Prince's mouth, only leans closer, until his hair is falling in his face. “You're scared of me.”

The Raven Prince rolls his eyes once more, though he cannot control the shudder that ripples through him, not only at Mosk's words, but the musical tone beneath it. It was lower than usual, soothing in a way that the Raven Prince couldn't remember it ever being, and when he looks up, Mosk's eyes are glowing a dark emerald green. 

“You need to listen to me, Mosk,” The Raven Prince implores. ”Can you still hear me?”

“Of course I can,” Mosk smiles, though there is something unsettling about it, as if it doesn't quite fit on Mosk's face. “I can hear your heartsong, Raven Prince. It's _beautiful_. It sings to me, does it sing to you?”

The Raven Prince's eyes sting. “Mosk-”

“I can hear your meridians too, did you know they talk to your magic? They don't sound very happy right now,” Moss giggles, then leans down and presses his ear to The Raven Prince's chest. 

“ _Oh,”_ Mosk gasps _,_ sitting up enough to bring his face mere inches from The Raven Prince’s, glowing green eyes boring into his own. “Raven Prince _._ I can hear the way you were _made_.”

: : : 

It's worse than the Raven Prince imagined it would be and he quickly comes to the realization that he must change tactics if either of them are to come out of this unscathed. 

“Mosk,” he says. “You silly little tree. What are you doing, hm? Why keep me bound to the bed like this? Can we not talk like civilized people?”

“Because you'll leave,” Mosk says. The lyrical tone is gone from his voice, but his eyes remain a haunting green. “I don't want you to leave. Not you. Everybody does eventually, but you actually treated me like a person and _I don't want you to leave._ ”

The cabin trembles around them. 

“Alright then,” The Raven Prince says with finality. “Alright, Mosk Manytrees. I will stay aboard this awful ship with you.” 

Mosk looks down at him and blinks. “What?” 

The Raven Prince feigns a dramatic sigh. “I said alright, I will stay.” 

Mosk's brow furrows.”I don't believe you.”

The Raven Prince laughs. “Mosk, you just took a peak at the very fabric of my soul and you are saying you cannot tell if I am lying or not?”

Mosk's scowl deepens. “What do you want in exchange?”

Ah, the little tree is getting cleverer and cleverer. 

“I will stay on the Mantissa,” The Raven Prince says. ”If you will close your magic back up right now.” 

Mosk’s face goes completely blank, expressionless. 

“It is but a small request, Mosk,” The Raven Prince says. “Isn't it? And then you have my word I will remain on the ship.”

Mosk seems to mull it over a few moments before finally coming to a decision.

“Oath it.”

“I beg your pardon?” The Raven Prince laughs. Clever indeed. 

“You're the Raven Prince. You could lie or trick me easily. I'm not putting my magic away until you blood oath that you won't leave.” 

The Raven Prince, in all his infinite wisdom and cleverness, had not planned for this. But vines and coral and unnamed new species of fauna cover the entirety of the cabin now and he can hear the storm raging above the deck, the claps of thunder and lightning surrounding them. He can feel Mosk's magic in the air, so heavy with power it's suffocating, and he knows that if _he_ feels as if he's drowning under the force of it, then the rest of those on board are in grave danger. The Raven Prince thinks of Augus, who is already too weak from being on the ocean for so long, and makes his decision. 

“Fine,” he sighs. “I do not know why you must resort to such dramatics all the time, but we will do it your way just this once, you foolish, foolish little tree.” 

At that, Mosk brightens, his dark, glowing eyes fading away and returning to their naturally pale green shade, and the Raven Prince feels the vines unlace from around his wrists, his arms dropping to his sides suddenly. His fingers tingle as the circulation returns to them. 

“Okay,” Mosk says, looking around the room. “I just have to find a knife. Ugh, where is that stupid knife. I thought I just left it -- oh, found it.” 

He’s grinning when he comes over to the Raven Prince and crawls back on top of him. The Raven Prince wants to ask him why he doesn’t just sit on the _bed_ , but he’s anxious to get this part over with, so he lets it be. 

“Don’t say anything tricky,” Mosk scowls. “I’ll know if you try.” 

The Raven Prince is starting to understand now, the things that Mosk knows. The things he can know, if he so chooses. He’s not sure if Mosk knows yet, but soon he will.

“I wouldn’t dare,” the Raven Prince offers him a wry smile and takes the knife from Mosk’s hands. A blood oath, how uncouth. And for such a ridiculous reason, too. Mosk can't bear the thought of him leaving so badly that he feels he needs to resort to threats and manipulation. Still though, beneath his trepidation of the shift in Mosk’s demeanor and the disgust of having to cut into his own skin, The Raven Prince is almost flattered. In all his years he’s not sure anyone has ever gone to quite such lengths just to keep him in their life. 

“And how long?” He looks up at Mosk. “You know I cannot logically blood oath that I will never leave your presence, yes?” 

Mosk frowns, mutters, “Yeah. I guess.” 

“Good,” The Raven Prince says. “Thus, I think I shall oath to you that I will not leave tomorrow as planned, but remain on the Mantissa until you depart.” 

Mosk’s frown deepens. “No. You should...you should stay until we stop the ice plague.” 

The Raven Prince clenches his jaw. The boy is being petulant and absolutely irrational. He cannot blood oath that he will not leave him until the ice plague is defeated because there is no way of knowing when that might be. They aren’t even sure if it’s _possible._

“No,” The Raven Prince asserts. “Until you leave the ship and continue your travels, I will be here. After that, we part ways, Mosk Manytrees.” 

Mosk’s magic, already suffocating and oppressive in the room, suddenly becomes heavier, _louder,_ somehow, rushing in the Raven Prince’s ear like the ocean, or the center of a galaxy. He feels it weighing him down, pressing him into the bed Mosk’s eyes glowing again as his magic squeezes around the Raven Prince’s throat. 

“You’re just like everyone else,” Mosk murmurs, his voice soft and melodic, bouncing off the walls of the cabin. The Raven Prince gasps for air. He reaches up to touch his throat by instinct, but of course there is nothing there for him to grasp or pull away, just the will of Mosk’s untamed magic cutting off his air supply. “I thought you were different. I thought you liked me.” 

Despite the eerie glow of his eyes, The Raven Prince can see a single, shining tear roll down Mosk’s cheek. Then the magic unfurls itself from around his throat as easily as it had tightened around it and The Raven Prince gasps, sucking oxygen back into his lungs. He doesn’t know how much time he has before Mosk loses control again, or what he’ll do next. If he even knows that he's doing it. 

And then, like being in the eye of a powerful, mercurial storm, Mosk’s expression changes on a dime. 

“You should fuck me,” Mosk says and before the Raven Prince can respond to object he is engulfed in heat, invisible flames licking at his skin, and suddenly there is a fire in his belly that he did not ask for. 

“Mosk, that is not a w--” He tries, but the Raven Prince cannot finish his sentence, for he cannot speak. For a moment, he is nothing but sheer panic, fearing the worst - that Mosk has done to him what he has done to so many others. It would be quite fitting he supposes, but after a moment he realizes that he has only been silenced. Mosk has not stolen his languages. Not yet. 

When he looks back up, all The Raven Prince can see is the fire in Mosk’s eyes before Mosk leans down and crashes his mouth into his and---

_Screams_

The Raven Prince can only hear screaming. 

It takes him a few moments to realize that the screams are coming from inside his own mind. But they aren’t screams of pain. The feeling is indescribable. 

It’s beautiful. 

It’s horror, wrapped in a pretty bow. 

The Raven Prince wants _more_.

But he’s still conscious enough to know what a catastrophic idea that is. His hands are still free, so he reaches for Mosk’s arms to push him away, but this only results in his hands being bound once more. The vines are stronger this time, with fragrant purple and orange blossoms, and he wants to ask Mosk what they’re called. 

“Faebloom,” Mosk says, answering the question that the Raven Prince had spoken only his own head. “I made it myself, just for you. Will you be nice, if I let you talk?” 

The Raven Prince nods his head. He does not like Mosk wandering around in his mind to find out what he’s thinking. The magic stealing his voice tingles when it lifts and a delayed, uncontrollable noise spills from the Raven Prince’s mouth, a moan of torture and ecstasy. The Raven Prince’s face flushes with heat once he hears the noise he makes, the instinct inside of him wanting to call his true form and allow him to escape this, but Mosk’s magic won’t allow it. Before he can collect himself, Mosk is leaning down and kissing him again, pouring magic into him that settles into the Raven Prince’s veins and flows through him, wild and bright and addictive _._

“Mosk,” he breathes out, reaching up and touching the boy’s face to ground both of them. His fingers feel liquid and electric where they touch Mosk’s skin and Mosk’s eyelashes flutter at the sensation as he leans into it. “Mosk, we mustn’t do this. You don’t want this.” 

Mosk sighs and seals his mouth over the Raven Prince’s again, his lips warm and soft, but unforgiving. His hands go to the Raven Prince’s shirt, plucking at the buttons until his shirt is open, chest exposed. His hands slide up the Raven Prince’s torso and back down, causing waves and ripples of magic to wash over him, through him, inside of him. He feels like the ship, swaying with the ocean, only Mosk is the thing rocking him. 

“Listen to me,” The Raven Prince tries once more, blinking his eyes a few times and shaking his head, trying to keep himself focused. “You need to listen to me, Mosk. You are not in control of yourself right now, you --”

“ _S_ _top_ telling me what I want,” Mosk snaps and his magic lashes across the Raven Prince’s exposed chest like a whip. It’s so sharp that the Raven Prince expects there to be blood, but when he looks down there is nothing. “You don’t know what I want.” 

“Yes that may be,” The Raven Prince says. “But you are in no state to be deciding that either.”

“I want you,” Mosk says, hands curving around The Raven Prince’s ribs, sliding up and down his torso. The Raven Prince fights the urge to arch his back like a needy feline, hating how he cannot hide his disgusting desperation of being touch-starved with Mosk’s magic prying him open and laying him bare. “You’re so pretty.” 

The Raven Prince doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s been called many things in his time and _pretty_ was of course one of the words that has been used, but it sounds so different out of Mosk’s mouth, a seventh son of a seventh son, another boy who had been sundered and left to figure out the world on his own. He doesn’t have a chance to say anything, however, before Mosk begins to undress him the rest of the way. 

“ _Mosk,_ ” The Raven Prince hisses as his pants are dragged down his legs. “Try to _think_ about what you are doing for one moment you foolish tree.” 

The Raven Prince knows he can suffer the consequences of this easily, as he has suffered much, much worse. But what's troublesome is how Mosk will feel about it once he comes out of this emotionally charged fugue of magic and power. The Raven Prince expects it will only help to cement Mosk's silly idea that he is irredeemable and hecannot allow that to happen, because once Mosk accepts that about himself, truly accepts it in his heart -- well. Then they are all doomed.

“I _am_ thinking,” Mosk insists, looking up at the Raven Prince from between his legs. “I know what I’m doing. I want you so much and you want me too. Your skin tastes like it.”

The Raven Prince’s teeth bite into his lower lip when Mosk reaches down and curls his hand around him, and he has to choke back a shameful sound. What happens after that is a blur of sensation and strong magic, pulling and tugging at him, twisting inside of him, turning him inside out. Mosk’s hand on him. Mosk’s mouth all around him. _MoskMoskMoskMoskMosk._ The Raven Prince cannot make himself produce any thoughts other than _wet_ and _warm_ and _soft_ and _more_. In the back of his mind he knows something is wrong about it, that he should object, that he should be hating this, but each time the thought enters his mind, he loses it again, slipping through his fingers like loose sand. 

When Mosk sinks down on him, the Raven Prince creates a new language to curse in. 

“Tell me you don’t want this,” Mosk says as he lifts up, then lowers himself back down again, looking down at him with those soft, pale green eyes and for a moment, the Raven Prince can forget that he’s teetering on the precipice of a destruction the world has not yet seen before. For a moment, he is simply Mosk Manytrees, who climbed and climbed until he reached the top. The silly little tree who would sit with him even when the Raven Prince could not bear his human form any longer, but still wished for companionship. “Say it, Raven Prince. Tell me you don’t want me.” 

The Raven Prince’s gaze catches on the green leaves woven through Mosk’s hair, the flecks of gold in his pale eyes, and suddenly he _aches_ for him. For the boy he could have been, the one he can still be, the one he is right now, wonderous and magnificent and spiralling out of control. They are reaching a very important turning point, one from which there may be no return, but there is still time. There’s still time for Mosk to _not become like him._

“I cannot, Mosk,” the Raven Prince admits and for perhaps the first time of his miserable, impossible life, he cannot tell if it is a truth or a lie. 

“Oh,” Mosk murmurs, his mouth staying shaped around the word for a moment, and then the vines are falling from the Raven Prince’s wrists and Mosk does as he did before only with both of their hands now, lining their fingers up, palm to palm as he begins to move his hips faster. Images flash behind the Raven Prince’s eyes of tree tops and fauna, flowers and streams, and the smell of evergreen and pine surrounds them. A current of electricity coils inside of the Raven Prince’s belly like a lit fuse waiting to go off as Mosk rides him, beautiful, sensual magic flowing from his fingertips into the Raven Prince. It is like nothing he has ever felt before, erotic and terrifying and enlightening all at once, a feeling that feels too large to keep inside of his body. 

Before then the Raven Prince had been mostly silent, but then Mosk begins moving faster and the blood in the Raven Prince’s veins turns electric, drawing a shocking loud sound from his lips. He waits for the shame to come, but it does not. Perhaps everything else is just too distracting. Mosk truly does look incredible like this, his soft, round face glistening with perspiration, his mouth parted slightly as he fucks him--

And that is what is happening, the Raven Prince realizes. Though he is the one being penetrated, Mosk is still very much fucking _him._ He is in control. He is taking what he wants and the Raven Prince is still not sure how he feels about that. He thought he didn’t want this, that he didn’t feel that way toward Mosk, but looking up at him, knowing what it feels like to be surrounded by his warmth and his fury and his love, the Raven Prince doesn’t know how he ever thought differently. 

“Mosk,” he breathes out, the two of them still palm to palm even as Mosk is riding him so hard his hair is falling in his eyes and his breathing is labored, their sweat slick skin slapping together lewdly. “My little tree. Look at you.” 

He doesn’t know what he’s saying, nor why he’s saying it. His mind is warped with lust and drunk on Mosk’s magic. There’s something at the edges of his magic that feels familiar, the way it feels being around Ash at times, but he doesn’t care enough to focus on it.

“Mosk,” he murmurs again, something exquisite building inside of him that has him meeting Mosk in the middle now, lifting his hips in time, chasing that feeling hungrily and selfishly. Mosk’s fingers where they’re pressed against his feel like they’re sinking into him, becoming a part of him. The Raven Prince would like that, he thinks, for Mosk to just crawl inside of him. He wants to carve a place out inside of him, make a home for him. Keep him forever. “You are so beautiful, so extraordinary…”

“Prince,” Mosk moans, head tilted back, throat bared wantonly, and the Raven Prince entertains the brief thought of what it would look like if he sank his teeth into it, if Mosk would wear the mark of his bruises around for all to see. He’s never been given to possessiveness before, but now all he can think of is making sure everyone knows that Mosk is _his._ “Oh. _Oh._ Please, Raven Prince, I feel...I feel so…”

All at once, Mosk’s fingers slip between the Raven Prince’s and the air in the cabin _crackles,_ Mosk cries out his name -- his real name, before he was ever the Raven Prince, before all of it -- and they are bathed in light. For a moment, the Raven Prince feels like the light is _himself,_ an external manifestation of the white hot feeling inside of him, but it's not. It's both of them. It is, he realizes with fear and awe, their heartsongs merging, winding around one another to create something new, something _impossible._

And then, everything stops. 

The room goes completely silent. 

The Raven Prince's ears pop. 

And Mosk throws his head back and screams. The Raven Prince can feel the shift in the air as Mosk takes the magic back inside of him, fingers glowing gold and green as he tightens around the Raven Prince and comes, spilling his seed all over the both of them, but the Raven Prince can’t find it in him to care. Mosk glows like a beacon of light almost too brilliant to look at as he cries out and the Raven Prince untangles their fingers and grabs Mosk's face in his hands, pulling Mosk down to him. 

“You've ruined me,” he says in between fierce, impassioned kisses. “You have. Oh, Mosk, Mosk, Ah, my Little Tree…”

The Raven Prince comes with his hands buried in Mosk's hair, Mosk's mouth muffling his cries as his own magic explodes out of him, rattling the walls of the cabin. He’s too blissed out to panic about his energy being loose, only vaguely knows that it’s something he should be worried about. Thankfully, Mosk somehow pulls it into himself. The Raven Prince watches as streams of glowing purple flow into Mosk’s chest, a beautiful color to contrast with his own green. Then he bends down and slots his mouth over the Raven Prince’s, returning his magic to him with a kiss, and the Raven Prince comes for a second time, his back arching off of the bed as the magic settles back into him, easy and familiar. Alongside his own energy, the Raven Prince can sense something that doesn’t feel like it belongs to him, something bright and shiny that sings to him. 

“What did you do?” He asks, trying to catch his breath. He feels as if all his bones have been turned to jelly and his lungs have shrunk two sizes. 

“Nothing,” Mosk says, lying down and pressing his cheek to the Raven Prince's chest. “Just something to remember me by when you leave.”

The Raven Prince reaches down and touches Mosk's sweat damp hair, fingers one of the loose curls idly. For a great long while, he says nothing. Mosk says nothing. Sometimes, in certain situations, he feels that nothing needs to be said. 

This is not one of those situations. 

“Mosk,” he says and Mosk just shakes his head, tries to burrow himself deeper into the Raven Prince's chest. 

“Don't. Not yet.”

“But you know we will have to.”

“Yes,” Mosk mutters. “I know.” 

The Raven Prince twirls another strand of hair around his fingers. For another long while, they lie together in silence. It is highly possible Mosk has fallen asleep. 

“Would you still ask me to take the oath,” The Raven Prince asks, unsure if he's going to get an answer or not. 

“Would you stop me,” Mosk asks instead of answering his question. “Would you stop me if I got like them?” 

“Oh, my sweet little tree,” The Raven Prince says, pulling Mosk closer to him and pressing his lips to the top of his head. “There is no stopping you now.”

**Author's Note:**

> The consent is dubious due to the Raven Prince being affected by Mosk's magic, sort of like a glamour making him more okay with it, and it's dubious for Mosk because Mosk is not really in his right mind at the moment. At the time, however, they do both enjoy it very much. :)


End file.
